The last habit of the One Minute Manager authored by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson is the One Minute Redirect.

To redirect effectively, a leader must have a spirit of accountability and a bias for action.

A leader models accountability by taking a pause to determine his role in the need to redirect. The leader asks some searching questions.

As this redirect takes place:

Are the goals clear? Are they written? Did I make sure the expectations are clear?

Was there good coaching and teaching? Did the methods used serve to accomplish the training?  Did the teammate have what was needed to do the job as expected?

When the teacher/coach/leader starts with self-assessment, it lends credibility to the process. There isn’t blame and finger pointing. There isn’t bitter criticism.

When the leader says, “hey, this situation isn’t what we want. Let’s look first at the goals that were set and the training you received, the problem becomes the task.

The bias for action places a focus on course correction quickly and directly. By being prompt, the adjustments are small, but specific. By being prompt, the adjustments come frequently.

The effective redirect comes so often, there’s little room to build up emotion. When the goal is the target, things don’t get personal. When your focused on advancing skill and knowledge versus blaming and reprimanding, real development takes place.

To be sure, there will be times when the teaching was on point and the goals were clear. The miss occurred, because of a lapse in responsibility. Those situations may require a challenge to commitment, concern and character that is personal.

But, more often we will find better and different teaching is in order. There is opportunity to spread the responsibility. A team effort toward the redirect is required.